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Dual 2.5GHz Power Mac G5

Ars Technica takes Apple's top of the line Dual 2.5GHz Power Mac G5 out for a …

In early June, Apple finally announced the long-awaited upgrade to its PowerMac G5 line. The original lineup, announced in July 2003, consisted of single-CPU 1.6GHz and 1.8GHz models, and a dual 2.0GHz model. During the keynote address in which he unveiled the original PowerMacintosh G5, Apple CEO Steve Jobs made the now-infamous promise that they would be shipping a tower with a 3.0GHz PowerPC 970 CPU by the end of the following summer. As the winter of 2003 ended, Mac users who were reluctant to buy Rev. A products from Apple or wanted a 3.0GHz machine were wondering where the new towers were.

At the same time IBM, manufacturer of the PowerPC 970 which powered the G5, was making the transition from a 130nm CPU fabrication process to 90nm. As has been well documented, the transition to 90nm was a lot more difficult than IBM (or Intel) anticipated. As a result, the debut of the Rev. B Power Mac G5s was delayed... and delayed... and delayed. Finally, on June 9 ? just two weeks shy of an entire year since the launch of the Power Mac G5 ? Apple announced a new lineup of G5s. The few who were still expecting 3.0GHz machines were disappointed, as the refreshed line topped out at 2.5GHz.

While they were announced on June 9, 2004, the first Dual 2.5GHz did not ship until July 30. Supplies on these remain tight as of this review, due to poor yields of the 2.5GHz CPUs at IBM.

Configuration

Apple splits their products into three buckets: Good, Better, and Best. Within those three categories, the machines can be custom configured to some extent. Buyers can choose to upgrade (or even downgrade in some cases) the hard drive, optical drive, built-in RAM, video card, and add various networking options such as AirPort Extreme (802.11g) and Bluetooth.

With the latest revision of the G5, Apple has gone to an all dual-CPU line-up. The "Good" machine has dual 1.8GHz PowerPC 970FX CPUs, an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra video card, and three 33MHz PCI slots. The "Better" tower sports two 2.0GHz CPUs, the same video card, and three PCI-X slots. The "Best" configuration comes with an ATI Radeon 9600XT and three PCI-X slots.

The Revision B Power Mac G5 is laid out similarly to the first revision. The primary difference is the processor speed (duh) and the liquid cooling system which keeps the CPUs running at a cool (!) 75-80?C under normal usage (more on the cooling system later).